Directed by:
Juraj NvotaCinematography:
Diviš MarekComposer:
Ľubica ČekovskáCast:
Richard Labuda, Milan Lasica, Libuše Šafránková, Ondřej Vetchý, Szidi Tobias, Milan Ondrík, Ady Hajdu, Ondřej Malý, Miroslav Noga, Robert Roth, Alexander Bárta (more)Plots(1)
Tragicomic family film about the world of children heroes - particularly the son of a local communist officer and his friend, a little hostage of the regime, whose parents emigrated to the West, few years before "Prague Spring" and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Camaraderie, the first big discoveries of love, enemy gang fights and naïve ideas are confronted with the reality of adult´s world. The film is about the first contacts with bizarre and absurd reality of relationships and attitudes of adults, politics, emigration, but also betrayal and death and about how all those things form and transform the lives of small boys, who are forced to grow up too quickly. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (3)
Childhood innocence and cruelty. Sometimes they clash, sometimes they fight side by side. The film can be criticized for dramaturgical missteps and related issues with coherence and depth of storytelling, but through the lens of childhood, which often takes the bitter with a sweet twist, much can be forgiven. The fourth star in my eyes was secured by the Kachyňa-style ending, where under the patronage of Milan Lasica, it becomes clear what a blessing it is to have an "old grandpa" who passes on something intangible, beyond just a hat.
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It’s not very often that I watch with delight another film that culminates in 1968. But I was lucky enough to see the original unedited version, so the Czech-Slovak-Hungarian linguistic tangle is in a completely authentic form. Milan Lasica and Libuše Šafránková are as charming as they can be at their age, and I have no doubt about Ondřej Vetchý. I really enjoyed it.
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I don’t really get why Slovak movies are dubbed in Czechia. Every time it happens, it makes the movie less believable. On the other hand, this movie is great in itself. I haven’t seen domestic (or Slovak) movie which would portray serious premises (in this case it was the Communist era) in such a fresh form from the point of view of a child in a long time. Juraj Nvota found a gap on the market and made it really worth it. The atmosphere was great, everything was nicely genuine, humane and it was really pleasurable and enjoyable to watch. A hidden gem among Czechoslovakian cinematography that deserves better rating than the one on this site.
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